The REAL Downton Abbey (Highclere Castle)

On September 10th I was privileged to visit Highclere Castle, more commonly known as Downton Abbey. It was the last day of the visiting season. I booked this visit clear back in February! The place is so popular, you have to book that far in advance. I have been wanting to go for a few years now and kept missing the opportunity because I was going online to book too late. Well, I finally got it right and the big day finally arrived....



I am a BIG fan of the show so seeing the real thing was so exciting. According to Google maps, it is only 1 hour 39 minutes from our house. Standing out in front of the house waiting to go in was surreal because I was standing where all the servants and family stand when they greet or say goodbye to their guests on the show. I have seen it so many times throughout all the seasons that it seemed strange for little ol' me to be standing in the same place...  



Here is a view of the side of the building 

The surrounding countryside was gorgeous! The estate is impressively large.

We had the most perfect weather that day too. It made the whole adventure even more perfect.

This area of brown is a wild flower garden in the spring. I have seen pictures and they look stunning. Too bad we could not have seen them all in bloom.

The trees surrounding the building (and all over the estate) were beautiful and breath-taking. I am sure many were 100s of years old.

This is a shot taken from the gardens.

Love this picture.

After touring the building, we had a lovely hot, lunch with roast potatoes and your classic English Sunday roast. 

Seeing the rooms inside was so much fun. I liked seeing the actual layout of the rooms downstairs. I loved the library with its wall to wall old hard bound books. They also had a desk and chair bought from Napoleon. Pretty impressive.

When we toured upstairs they had the various rooms labelled so you knew who's room was who's from the show. I found that quite interesting. However, they don't actually film in the bedrooms because even though they are quite spacious there is still not enough room for the cameras, crew and equipment. So that and the basement (servants quarters) is all done in studio. The bits on the main floor are filmed on location though. Of course, as I looked through the house, I couldn't help but recall specific episodes of when certain things happened in certain rooms.

The gardens were lovely. It was a perfect day out!